(23-06-2017 09:47 AM)morondog Wrote: I see it as a problem. Sure, it's a story about a violent sexist homophobic world. People from *our* world play that game. It's made for a mass market. Would it really cost so much to put in a few black people? To write a couple of sexually ambiguous characters? To write female characters who don't fuck you at the drop of a hat? Is it that important to be so artistically pure?

First Witcher was more or less copy of book with characters named different so I think that staying pure to world book is presenting was far more important than inserting black people into world where there is no mention of them. Same with gays, who if game wouldn't gave them plot armor would be killed instantly, or hounded like the guy from Wild Hunt. It isn't Bioware story of medieval world where women are somehow equal to man (going by blurb when choosing character sex in Dragon Age: Origins).

Also it could be argued (if I remember right) that witch from first act was strong female character who isn't above using sex to coerce you in decision that would benefit her. She wasn't witless patsy wanting for prince to screw her, rather shrew (for a game character) manipulator using sex to her advantage. Same thing with Dryad who wanted to have sex with player character after said character proved his strength - Dryads are female only, using man as prize stallions. Just like it was in book.

Quote:I get that the authors chose their path, that's for them to do. It's their work of art. I enjoyed the game. But I don't think this is baseless criticism.

To be honest I think that it is baseless criticism, just like with Wild Hunt when some reviewers cried foul cause bad guy during the sabbath was surrounded by succubus or witches. Those who know even a little about folklore are aware what allegedly was happening during sabbaths, reviewers did not and cried about sexism.

Witcher is story about white only continent, written by people from almost only white country for (I suppose) white population of said country.

The first revolt is against the supreme tyranny of theology, of the phantom of God. As long as we have a master in heaven, we will be slaves on earth.

(23-06-2017 09:14 AM)Szuchow Wrote: I've seen no problem with the game (in the context of your post, loading times were a bitch) nor I see it now. It may have been sexist but it is story of sexist, violent and homophobic society not uplifting utopia.

I see it as a problem. Sure, it's a story about a violent sexist homophobic world. People from *our* world play that game. It's made for a mass market. Would it really cost so much to put in a few black people? To write a couple of sexually ambiguous characters? To write female characters who don't fuck you at the drop of a hat? Is it that important to be so artistically pure?

I get that the authors chose their path, that's for them to do. It's their work of art. I enjoyed the game. But I don't think this is baseless criticism.

It's also important to note that action based games are power fantasy material. The world in which the hero evolves in will become utopic due to the fact player will be sympathetic to the protagonist cause and morality. In other words, you couldn't find a better way to sell racism, sexism and homophobia than by making a popular, fun action based game in which the character evolves in a sexist, homophobic and/or racist world without ever being affected negatively by those traits, having the possibility to be sexist, racist and homophobic and in which the character isn't criticised himself. The ubiquitousness of these traits in the fantasy genre isn't innocent. It's not only a skewed, mythified and caricatural vision of the Middle Ages.

On another note, though, while this conversation is interesting, I think we have completly derailed this thread.

(23-06-2017 09:14 AM)Szuchow Wrote: I've seen no problem with the game (in the context of your post, loading times were a bitch) nor I see it now. It may have been sexist but it is story of sexist, violent and homophobic society not uplifting utopia.

I see it as a problem. Sure, it's a story about a violent sexist homophobic world. People from *our* world play that game. It's made for a mass market. Would it really cost so much to put in a few black people? To write a couple of sexually ambiguous characters? To write female characters who don't fuck you at the drop of a hat? Is it that important to be so artistically pure?

I get that the authors chose their path, that's for them to do. It's their work of art. I enjoyed the game. But I don't think this is baseless criticism.

A large part of that is the developers working within the frame work of their adaptation. Their adaptation was faithful, but the thing they were adapting was a Polish fantasy novel set in a distinctly eastern European-esque fantasy world. That world is a real shitty one, rife with violence, sexism, and racism (especially among humans and nonhuman, de facto religious pogroms are a cornerstone of the world).

Now the developers themselves did get better with their second and third dip into the well, and took much more creative liberties with the property (so much so that the original author doesn't like the narrative bent of the games). They got farther away from the juvenile titillation and pandering of the first game, and really doubled down on exploring character relationships; including people's sexuality. The series arguable reached it's zenith with the third entry, Wild Hunt, which is both a compelling love story and also subverts more established genre tropes (for example, how romance is handled in most Bioware games).

Bottom line, it's an interesting conversation, and one well worth having; provided the rabid peanut galley can be bothered to stop dox'ing, swatting, harassing, ddos'ing, or otherwise terrorizing people who want to have that conversation.

But I'm going to let those more educated and well versed than I take it from here.

I love the people over at Extra Credits, quite possibly my all time favorite YouTube channel (and has been since they jumped ship from The Escapist, back when Jim Sterling and MovieBob were both still there).

(23-06-2017 09:47 AM)morondog Wrote: I see it as a problem. Sure, it's a story about a violent sexist homophobic world. People from *our* world play that game. It's made for a mass market. Would it really cost so much to put in a few black people? To write a couple of sexually ambiguous characters? To write female characters who don't fuck you at the drop of a hat? Is it that important to be so artistically pure?

I get that the authors chose their path, that's for them to do. It's their work of art. I enjoyed the game. But I don't think this is baseless criticism.

It's also important to note that action based games are power fantasy material. The world in which the hero evolves in will become utopic due to the fact player will be sympathetic to the protagonist cause and morality. In other words, you couldn't find a better way to sell racism, sexism and homophobia than by making a popular, fun action based game in which the character evolves in a sexist, homophobic and/or racist world without ever being affected negatively by those traits, having the possibility to be sexist, racist and homophobic and in which the character isn't criticised himself. The ubiquitousness of these traits in the fantasy genre isn't innocent. It's not only a skewed, mythified and caricatural vision of the Middle Ages.

On another note, though, while this conversation is interesting, I think we have completly derailed this thread.

It's not like you couldn't fight with racism (specism?) in Witcher. You easily could take a stand in defence of ones who are subjugated. Not to mention the fact that you are part of oppressed minority, one of last members of this kind with almost all of the rest dying in pogrom. Also player character is affected by prejudices as Riv (equivalent of Romani I guess) and mutant.

The first revolt is against the supreme tyranny of theology, of the phantom of God. As long as we have a master in heaven, we will be slaves on earth.

(23-06-2017 09:16 AM)RocketSurgeon76 Wrote: EK - Those videos are amazing. How do you come up with this stuff?!

I try.

But seriously, I was clued into that series by a Tweet from one Eli Bosnick.

Yes, that Eli Bosnick. A founder of Puzzle in a Thunderstorm LLC., and member of the God Awful Movies, The Scathing Atheist, The Skepticrat, and (in collaboration with Cognitive Dissonance) the Citation Needed podcasts. The crazy motherfucker who licked Ray 'Banana-Man' Comfort at the Reason Rally in D.C..

(23-06-2017 10:14 AM)Szuchow Wrote: It's not like you couldn't fight with racism (specism?) in Witcher. You easily could take a stand in defence of ones who are subjugated. Not to mention the fact that you are part of oppressed minority, one of last members of this kind with almost all of the rest dying in pogrom. Also player character is affected by prejudices as Riv (equivalent of Romani I guess) and mutant.

Awesome! (I know of the game, but never could play it, my computer is too shitty for that sort of stuff). In that case this game has no problem with racism and cannot be used as an efficient form of propaganda for racism. Others in the same genre don't have this quality.

(23-06-2017 10:14 AM)Szuchow Wrote: It's not like you couldn't fight with racism (specism?) in Witcher. You easily could take a stand in defence of ones who are subjugated. Not to mention the fact that you are part of oppressed minority, one of last members of this kind with almost all of the rest dying in pogrom. Also player character is affected by prejudices as Riv (equivalent of Romani I guess) and mutant.

Awesome! (I know of the game, but never could play it, my computer is too shitty for that sort of stuff). In that case this game has no problem with racism and cannot be used as an efficient form of propaganda for racism. Others in the same genre don't have this quality.

First part is 5 years old if not older so I suppose you would be able to play this. And while I wouldn't say that game endorse racism you could help to suppress minority, as part of campaign against terrorists. I wouldn't call it racism though as from my understanding you don't kill elves cause they're elves but cause they're terrorists.

Honestly though when I was choosing sides I decided basing on tangible rewards (swords, armors) not deeply held principles.

As for other games I'm not overtly concerned. I can differentiate between fiction and reality so why I should think that others can not?

The first revolt is against the supreme tyranny of theology, of the phantom of God. As long as we have a master in heaven, we will be slaves on earth.

Now, I'm not a gamer and outgrew fantasy when I outgrew religion... okay bad way of phrasing it and no way am I comparing both...

Anyway, I am currently translating a rather popular book from a series by a rather popular YA fantasy writer (there's even a (crappy) movie and a (-n even crappier) TV series) based on her previous works) and one of the reasons she is the only one I actually like*, is the way she uses her books to comment on the real world and foster a more forward-thinking, progressive worldview in her readers (I think). I mean, in her latest series the world is in the grips of a very unjust peace, where some of the races have been stripped of most, even all their rights and the supposed "heroes" of that world want to go back to a golden age, when they were great (sound familiar?), they want to register other races and control them, even send them to camps, mixed marriages are forbidden, etc.

She is also one of the few I've translated, who treats her "other" couples not like the "token gayz", but like nothing out of the ordinary. She even - believe it or not - has a trans* character in her latest book (yes, we are talking about YA fantasy). I was really, really impressed not just by the fact that she did it, but by the way she did it, too.

* However and it's a big however! She also has a storyline in this book that's creeping me out but good (or bad, really ), where she has a triangle of sorts, where one of the characters is a bisexual man, the other is a gay man (well, faerie, really) and a mightily annoying, religious, goody-two-shoes of a girl (that's driving me freaking bonkers) and now both men are infatuated with her kindness and niceness (and other things) and it feels disconcertingly like the bored housewife cliche of two gay men and a woman and I find it deeply distasteful and cheap.

(23-06-2017 11:43 AM)Vera Wrote: Now, I'm not a gamer and outgrew fantasy when I outgrew religion... okay bad way of phrasing it and no way am I comparing both...

Anyway, I am currently translating a rather popular book from a series by a rather popular YA fantasy writer (there's even a (crappy) movie and a (-n even crappier) TV series) based on her previous works) and one of the reasons she is the only one I actually like*, is the way she uses her books to comment on the real world and foster a more forward-thinking, progressive worldview in her readers (I think). I mean, in her latest series the world is in the grips of a very unjust peace, where some of the races have been stripped of most, even all their rights and the supposed "heroes" of that world want to go back to a golden age, when they were great (sound familiar?), they want to register other races and control them, even send them to camps, mixed marriages are forbidden, etc.

She is also one of the few I've translated, who treats her "other" couples not like the "token gayz", but like nothing out of the ordinary. She even - believe it or not - has a trans* character in her latest book (yes, we are talking about YA fantasy). I was really, really impressed not just by the fact that she did it, but by the way she did it, too.

* However and it's a big however! She also has a storyline in this book that's creeping me out but good (or bad, really ), where she has a triangle of sorts, where one of the characters is a bisexual man, the other is a gay man (well, faerie, really) and a mightily annoying, religious, goody-two-shoes of a girl (that's driving me freaking bonkers) and now both men are infatuated with her kindness and niceness (and other things) and it feels disconcertingly like the bored housewife cliche of two gay men and a woman and I find it deeply distasteful and cheap.

Hmm, what was I trying to say again? Am conflicted, is all

I have no problem with gays IRL so why I should care about them appearing in games? Having said that I see no need to insert homosexual characters for the sake of "political correctness" into game which is basing on source material in which no gays were shown. Book depicted sexist, racist and generally intolerant society, no reason for game to be different.

Lack of references to homosexuality in game about Ancient Greece would have surprised me*, lack of it in game that emulate even more shitty Europe in middle ages does not.

*Yes, I know that things didn't looked quite right they look now back then.

The first revolt is against the supreme tyranny of theology, of the phantom of God. As long as we have a master in heaven, we will be slaves on earth.

Szuchow, I was talking about books. And what does "insert" them mean? People of different sexual orientations are part of this world, isn't it more a question of "excluding" such characters in works of fiction than "inserting" them in a world of which they are part?

It is the exact same thing with black people, who are only introduced for the sake of "diversity", the different ones, not the norm.

Today is the birthday of Octavia Butler, the first African-American female writer of science fiction. ""When I began writing science fiction, when I began reading, heck, I wasn't in any of this stuff I read," Ms. Butler told The New York Times in 2000. "The only black people you found were occasional characters or characters who were so feeble-witted that they couldn't manage anything, anyway. I wrote myself in, since I'm me and I'm here and I'm writing."

I guess if gay people want to be part of the literature, movie, game culture of this world, they'll just have to write themselves in, eh?

ETA: When Dawn, the first book of her Xenogenesis series was first published, this was its cover

Nice, ain't it?

Dawn is the first book in Octavia Butler’s Xenogenesis series and her protagonist Lilith Iyapo (the standing woman in the cover to your left), is described as “an imposing black woman”.